“MercSecure reps work for the FCG too,” Connard said. “Listen, Bleak, what we are most concerned about here is the safety of the American people. The American people, the greatest people in the world in my humble opinion, deserve all the protection they can get. People would kill – do kill – to live here and exploit our freedoms. Exploit dammit! Shouldn’t we be concerned about this? Shouldn’t we protect our homeland, the place we were all born? This country has changed the world – the world would be a shithole if it wasn’t for American intervention!”
“All your arguments essentially allow you to be judge, jury and executioner. That, my friends, isn’t democracy. Just because you’ve painted freedom in a particular way that suits your needs, doesn’t mean that it’s freedom.”
“Are you not American?” Sauria asked Bleak. “Don’t you love your country?”
“Ah! This argument, my favorite argument from a patriotic businessman whose wealth is tied directly to the nation’s weapons industry. Let me be the first to inform you gentlemen: a country is simply a company. Some companies last a long time, some don’t. If I was born in Poland, I’d essentially be born into a Polish company. Cuba? A Cuban company. Thailand? A Thai company. You get the picture.”
“That’s absurd!”
“Is it though? All companies have their mission statements and their corporate culture. Some companies are more successful than others. Some companies operate what is basically a monopoly. Some companies are harsh to their employees, some aren’t. Some companies are progressive, some aren’t. The same applies to countries. Being American or Canadian or Rwandan or Polynesian makes no difference to me. It may have been harder for me to obtain my position in other places, and yes, you could say that some places would make it nearly impossible for me to obtain my position, but a country is a company. And gentlemen, what the two of you are involved in is bad business for both.”
TWENTY-THREE∞
Of course Yeshi and I had sex the moment she woke up. I’ll spare you the details, but I can tell you it felt exactly the same as having sex with a bona fide female. If you need a visual, find a porno online starring a Mexican man with a potbelly and an Asian woman with bangs. That should give you a fair enough image (please don’t masturbate to the thought of Yeshi and me making whoopee).
Let us return to the problem at hand for the sake of literary pacing.
Yeshi and I need to get to Mexico, but our status with the FCG will complicate this. You may wonder how we got to Japan in the first place, and if the words “drug cartel connects’ don’t mean anything to you, they should now. Yes, we took Carloza’s private hyperjet to Japan. Unfortunately for us, (well, for him too) Carloza is dead (RIP amigo), which will make asking for a favor a little more difficult. Luckily for us, Noah was able to obtain the private contact info for Manuel, Carloza’s former second banana, who MercSecure moved in to take over the franchise.
After another shag, I decide to place a call over iNet to Manuel, rather than starting out with an iNet message. I figure that it may help for him to see his former boss’ body.
“Hello?” Manuel says in English.
I activate the video feed in the room. My face – Carloza’s face – appears on his iNet screen.
“Carloza?” he asks, his eyes widening. “No, you’re the guy he switched with, the guy who had the baby.”
His tone of voice indicates that he isn’t happy with me.
“Hola. That would be me,” I say. “Umm … so where to begin?”
“How did you get my information?”
“Are you in a secure setting?” I ask him.
He shuffles around for a moment. “I am now. What do you want?”
“We share a common enemy.”
I watch as Yeshi changes into an LCD shirt that reads: GLAD-HAND ME.
“Your switch with Carloza is what caused all this,” he says. “It brought our operation to the attention of MercSecure and the FCG. Now, he is dead and I have a DL agent in my body. What could you possibly know about sharing the same enemy?”
“Yesterday, my associate,” I wink at Yeshi, “and I infiltrated MercSecure headquarters in Tokyo. We were able to uncover information regarding Nelly’s location.”
“Why should I care about Nelly’s location?”
“She’s being held in a maximum security prison in Colorado,” I say, ignoring his question.
“They put her in jail?” he asks. “I thought they were rescuing her…”
“Not really. They basically came to Mexico just to get the baby. The baby’s father is a man named Antimeria, who is a close friend of another man named Sauria, the CEO of ExEx and MercSecure’s second largest shareholder aside from the FCG. They essentially killed two birds with one stone. Three actually – they got the baby back, they captured Nelly and they installed a DL agent in you. They also tried to kill me in Tokyo, but I was able to avoid death by doing a data-switch.”
“I see.”
“So now I’m in Carloza’s body but my life chip info says that I am a Japanese man named Takashi Ogawa. Identity crisis.”
“I saw that when you placed your call.”
I open another screen and quickly send Yeshi a message.
Me: I forgot to show you this due to the newest edition to our love life. Check out the video taken from Rinchi’s hostage rescue mission. That shit cray.
I attach the link and send it off. Yeshi’s eyes flicker as she runs the video feed in her head.
“So we share a common enemy,” Manuel says.
“Yes, MercSecure, ExEx and the FCG.”
“You are essentially proposing we go to war with America…”
“No, that’s not what I’m proposing at all.” I watch as Yeshi replays the video feed. She nods her head, as if she is taking notes on Rinchi’s actions. The two will do battle one day – there is no sense in sugar-coating this.
“Then what are you proposing?”
I explain to Manuel how we installed a fake DL agent in the Japanese woman the previous day.
“What was the point of that?”
“She still did what we wanted her to do,” I say. “And this is what I’m getting at here. The FCG is too big to go against directly, but it is possible to go against the various corporations they own. Through technology and other means, we can disrupt their overreach, starting with freeing Nelly.”
“Why would freeing Nelly disrupt their overreach?”
“As it stands right now, they think that I’m dead and they think of you as a piece in their game to profit from the drug trade through various Walliburton connections. Getting Nelly out of prison would completely undermine their supposed power and authority. It would be like kicking over an ant pile. It will make them tighten their grip, which could lead to a number of things. For one, they may finally piss other countries off to the point that they won’t easily back down. Also, depending on the structure of their organization, it could be akin to knocking the blocks out of the bottom of a Jenga tower, causing a chain reaction of blame, and secondary blame, through the various corporate entities.”
Well said, Meme. I pat myself on the back to congratulate my morning clarity. Across the room, Yeshi pulls her legs into full lotus. I get the urge to curl up in her lap, but I remain seated because I’m currently being recorded.
“What do you need?” Manuel finally asks.
“Firstly, we need to get to Mexico. It is hard to run the operation from our current location in Tokyo.”
“That’s easy,” he says. “A shipment will arrive in Tokyo soon. You can return on our hyperjet. What else?”
“Well, we can discuss this more when I get there, but we need a way to get Nelly out of prison and soon.”
“I’ll look into it,” he says. “I’m going to forward you an address. I want you to be there in two hours. Make sure no one follows you. You’re running a bodymasking app, right?”
“BlurYou.”
“Make sure it is activated. The men that are coming to Japan w
orked directly for Carloza. They will recognize you, so no worries there.”
“Got it.”
“One more thing,” he says. “What should I call you?”
“Meme, Meme Lamar, but to the FCG I’m currently known as Anonymous One.”
TWENTY-FOUR∞
Keva kicked the girl’s feet out from under her, followed her down, put her knee on the girl’s neck and hissed, “Don’t move or I will kill you.” She quickly zip tied the girl’s wrists behind her back.
Rinchi’s Lifechip scan didn’t disclose much info beyond the girl’s name – Medya Zal – Kurdish ethnicity, Turkish nationality and date of birth in 2070. “What do we do with her?”
Prince Al Omid’s security detail swarmed out of the two leading MRAPs and formed a protective cordon around the passenger’s side of the gold-plated Humvee limo. The ranking escort opened the door and the Prince stepped out, his fresh white thwab beating in the wind behind him. As he moved away from the vehicle, the cordon closed in behind him and the escort maintained a very precise three pace distance from his exalted personage. They moved like an amoeba over to the fallen Comsuit; Monique followed closely behind the group, her two Heckler, Koch und SIG 5.7mm Arm Waffen readily available on single-point slings.
“So, you’ve failed to prevent yet another attempt on my life?” the Prince bellowed like a castrated calf. “Truly, a handful of retarded Fedayeen and a scrofulous three-legged goat would have provided me with more efficient security.” He radiated anger and disgust as he pressed through the center of his security detail, elbowing them out of his way when they didn’t move fast enough.
“Who’s this?” He looked down at the girl, his dog’s anus of a mouth pursed in disapproval.
Keva straightened up, dusted off her hands and approached the Prince. Two of his escort moved to intercept her, but wisely reconsidered once they registered what they were actually seeing.
“This is the Comsuit operator. She almost got the drop on me and my droidie friend here. If we hadn’t come along first and she’d waited and let us go by,” Keva blandly stated, not mentioning that she had been the one to ambush Rinchi’s transport, “the girl would have blown your gold-plated Gay Pride Parade Float into sparkling confetti.”
The Prince directed his most vicious, lackey-and-sycophant withering glare at Keva; it left her singularly unmoved.
“Enough details,” he huffed, brushing past Keva to the girl on the ground. He brought his foot forward and slipped his perfectly pedicured toes under her shoulder and flipped her over on her back. Underneath the dirt and grease the girl was strikingly attractive, with near white skin and thick brown hair.
Al-Omid spat in her face. “You miserable little whore.” He kicked her in the ribs and turned to his Security Chief. “Put her in the transport. I will enjoy … interrogating this murderous little slut myself.”
Keva’s silvered eyes narrowed as she spoke. “No, Your Highness, you will not. I will not allow you to subject another child to your attentions. She comes with me.”
Rinchi watched the Prince’s security detail as they glanced at one another and nervously fingered their weapons. The Prince never responded well to ‘no’; this was likely to turn ugly, and fast.
“You will not allow? YOU will not allow? YOU!?” Al Omid roared. He spat at Keva’s feet, and turned to glare at Clove. “Truly you people are incompetent!” he screamed. “Can you not even control your own subordinates? This woman, this child defies me – defies ME – and you stand there with your thumb up your vile, infidel ass and allow it!”
Keva spoke before Clove could reply. “I’m taking the girl with me,” she informed the livid Prince, “for further analysis. There are two ways this can happen. Either you and your posse of ballerinas get back in your big shiny pimp-mobile and be on your merry little Quran-fucking way, or I will kill each and every one of you.”
“What did … WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY!?”
The Prince nearly had a cerebral hemorrhage.
“You miserable pig-fucker. You’ve lived your whole life in a bubble of no consequences where you always get your way, where everything’s handed to you, where you can rape and murder and torture and kill with impunity. Well, not today; today has consequences. Welcome to the real world, bitch.”
The Kurdish girl on the ground moved and whimpered quietly. With surprising gentleness, Keva helped her to her feet.
Rinchi quickly said something to the girl in Arabic; the girl’s eyes grew wide as she took a step back.
“Alrighty then, Prince Abudalziz Ibn Al Omid of the house of Saud, which will it be?” Keva smiled.
“Enough!” the Prince shrieked to his guard dogs. “Take her head and slay the rest of them, especially that one.” He pointed at Rinchi. “Leave the little whore for me.”
He licked his fat lips in anticipation of the slaughter to come. Insha’Allah!
But God moves in truly mysterious ways. Keva still had Rinchi’s knife, and in that moment she was transformed, transfigured, and transubstantiated. Gone was the immature, vulgar, clownish buffoon. Instead, The Angel of Death moved amongst mortal men in all Her awful majesty. The Prince’s escort were all big, beefy men, truly fearsome against shackled prisoners or weeping women and children. Against Keva, they stood like paper dolls before Allah’s Golden Scissors.
The security detail never got a round off.
With knee and elbow, knife and sword hand, Keva reaped them like rice and left them on the ground, choking their lives out, faster than it takes to tell. The Prince, so far untouched, stood completely transfixed, his bowels and bladder suddenly and inadvertently empty for the second time that day.
The gun turrets on the Prince’s escort MRAPs whined to life as they targeted the MercSecure reps. Clove prevented that shitshow from ever starting. The depleted uranium slugs went supersonic as they left the muzzle of his railgun, blasting through the vehicles’ composite armor in a jet of plasma that ignited anything remotely combustible inside. The doors blew open as fuel and ammo cooked off in secondary explosions.
Keva ignored this, fixated solely on Al Omid’s weeping, quivering form.
“Mercy,” he whispered. “Mercy … ”
Her laugh was clear and child-like, full of genuine mirth. In other circumstances, it would have been a pleasure to listen to.
Clove: If we rearrange things, we can make this look like jihadis did it so we can still get paid. I’ll handle the paperwork.
Monique: Might as well.
Keva turned to Rinchi, holding the knife out butt first. “Hey, droid whore – you want a piece of this?” she asked.
Stepping forward, Rinchi gripped the front of the Prince’s garment and with one swift, fluid motion, slit his belly open with the blade. Prince Al Omid screamed and screamed as he desperately tried to stuff steaming loops of intestine back into his body cavity.
TWENTY-FIVE∞
“Well, that was not without its entertainment value.” Keva observed. Rinchi backed off as Keva moved over to the Prince. He was lying on his side, moaning and crying and feebly trying to remake his ruined abdomen. She crouched in front of him, slapped his face to get his attention, and did a flashy and ostentatious open with the butterfly knife she pulled from her pocket.
Rinchi looked up to see Clove and Monique covering her. She very carefully kept her hands in full view.
“Look, Rinchi – I understand that you think you’ve got a legitimate beef with me, but we’re not going to settle it here.” Clove explained. “Take it to Representative Relations when we get back, and let them adjudicate it. Right now we’ve got to rearrange things, dress this scene a little bit, and get our stories straight. All the shooting and the smoke from the vehicles is going to draw a crowd, so we need to get this done quick and dirty and bail.”
Monique added, “Good advice. Listen to him.”
Rinchi looked from Clove to Monique and then back to Clove. Their weapons hadn’t moved during the exchange. “That is good advice, that’s w
hat I’ll do.” she agreed, “Let’s get this done and get of here.”
The Prince was in a bad way; he was choking and gasping as he aspirated his own blood. Keva stood up and waved Al Omid’s tongue at the other Representatives. “I’ve been looking forward to doing this for years.”
Clove cocked an eyebrow. “You knew him?”
“You know my history,” she answered. “Al Omid is the one who set up the kidnappings. He used to brag about it all the time when he was … ” she swallowed “ … abusing me. The fat disgusting fuck.”
Clove’s expression barely changed, but Rinchi saw the briefest flashes of pity and tightly controlled anger.
“I promised myself that I would have a reckoning with him, and seeing him pee and poo in his nice white robe, hearing him beg me for mercy – that was so sweet, I was in the seraglio for many years, and I suffered at the hands of many men. I don’t remember all of them, but those that I do – they suffer at my hands now.”
“What about the girl?” Rinchi asked, squeezing the Kurdish girl’s shoulder.
“Like I told the fat, dying Prince, she’s coming with me, with us,” Keva said. “I will personally deliver her to the facility that trained me. She’s thirteen?”
“Thirteen,” Rinchi said. “I scanned her. Her name is Medya Zal.”
“She’ll make a great representative, especially the way she operates a Comsuit.”
There was a sharp report from Monique’s weapon. She was walking amongst the Prince’s downed escorts conducting site sanitation and witness eradication.
Keva placed the Prince’s tongue in one of the ziploc bags she carried for her specimen collecting, and secured it with her equipment. “Ask about her family; find out how long she’s been operating her killing machine and where she got it from.”
Rinchi relayed the question. The girl’s face hardened and she looked down as she replied at some length.
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